Hope everyone is succeeding with the ZA counter update much better than I did... and not had their PC wiped out like mine....BEWARE!
On my laptop the update went OK, but the update totally f'd#$%^%$# my PC... The admin account (from where I installed the ZA update) got completely thrashed... E.g. ALL my desktop personal icons and &quot;All Programs&quot; Startup menu got wiped out.... and ZA not only failed to start at boot time, it wouldn't even launch by invoking the ZA .exe file in &quot;Program Files&quot;. Thus I've uninsatalled ZA and will probably need to do a 'restore' - what fun.
Ironically, when the Windows update crashed my Internet access July 9th I was on another forum getting information on how to access the Internet with the Linux distro I'm starting to use - PuppyLinux, booting from a LiveCD and running entirely in RAM... runs with minimal RAM... perfect for reviving old PC/Laptops... easy transition for 'Windows renegades' like me.
A higher irony is that ZA's sole reason for existance is to protect against the ridiculous security vulnerability of Windows... and now
a Windows update (security?) is the reason why I uninstalled ZA - Is there something wrong with this picture? Foreseeable I will continue to need Windows for certain applications I need offline. During my transition to Linux for Internet access, for a while I'll need to still have Internet access via Windows.... and for that I'll rely on the Windows Firewall - an oxymoron!

What a piece of **bleep** software! It would be bad had it just not worked, but to destroy a computer system...that is unconscionable. ZA folks should have tested this before releasing it on we, the unsuspecting users. I know it wasn't intentional, but still...the cost in time and aggravation to reformat/install/tweak dozens of applications is enormous.

Worse than I thought! Thanks to my naive trusting of the otherwise great ZA, with this 'counter fix' for 'Windows clashing updates' my PC now appears to be
thrahed - Any suggestions will be highly appreciated. (PS- I'm on XP-Home, not as ZA forum reported im my original message.) Writing from my laptop...Guess what? Windows won't 'restore'!- Since the admin account on my desktop was trashed by the ZA update, the first thing I did was to invoke it and grant admin privileges to the account I normally use for browsing the Internet.- Next I atempted to restore windows - Surprise... it won't. - Not due to ZA but thanks to Windows... Seeking the earliest restorre point before the ZA update fiasco, Windows' error message was that the restore point was made with my external backup drive and had 'either been changed or turned off' since - duh? No matter how &amp; wich admin account I used nothing worked.Side comment - May 'history' come to judge Micro$oft's impact in the 20th century.
In the mean time... how I wish that my contributions to Bill Gates'philantropy were tax-deductibe for me. (Numerous books have been written about corporations 'created by a genius but run by idiots' - including comments about founders that got booted out and those who escaped in time...Back to reality - What next for my thrashed PC? I sure someone here can offrer me some guidance! For now all I can think of is to first make a backup of my recent files.... then find a restore point prior to whenever I last used my external backup drive... Other suggestions anyone?

That's more or less what I did. Except I couldn't even access system restore. Nothing regarding managing the system was working (because all system .dll files were corrupted). Fortunately...and only once did I have the forethought to do so...I made a back up image of my entire hard drive about 4 months ago using Acronis backup software. Fortunately, I back up all my data files daily onto an external hard drive. So I retrieved the old image file and restored it onto my C:drive. So...now my computer looks like it did in March 2008. Several applications that were not present in March had to be installed. Others were removed that I removed after the backup date. I am still working on this. I have restored the important data files to the &quot;new&quot; hard drive/system configuration, but have spent the last 24 hours working on this system just to get it where I already had it before.

If you've backed up data files, and you have the option to use system restore to a not to old configuration, that's what I'd do. Then just update the most recent data files.

My computer was also wiped out.
I tried to restore, but it has wiped out my restore points except for the day before I downloaded the &quot;fix&quot; and that tells me there has been no change in my system. My desktop had all icons wiped out except for
shortcuts to downloaded programs
that I have to now re-configure and re-register.
&quot;Luckily&quot; I found all my files in the log-on user folder that will not work, so I do not know how to change the computer to log on to this account and not the one that it is booting up. I don't even know what account is booting up.
Don't know if anyone can help me? I'm running XP
Professional Media Centre.

Secretary,
Try going to Start/Control/User Accounts... Perhaps setup a new account with ADMIN privileges... then when you reboot that account would appear as an option to logon... and by being 'admin' it can access files throughout the computer... then you could create a shortcut/link on the desktoy for going to 'My Documents; in the other account.
ChickNew,
Congrats! I've also been using Acronis (True Image) in very recent times... set up for incremental updates daily... haven't yet ventured into restoring the entire drive but that likely will be a next step for me... Being new with Acronis I first need to create data backups by conventional means - just to be safe.

ChickNew,Please say more about what else you did besides restoring the hard drive image, i.e. how to trevent the problem from happening again when the Windows and ZA updates come in. Fortunately the drive image I saved on my external drive is from June 24th and I'm getting ready to restore it. Upon doing this my instinct is to have the PC disconnected from the Internet and change settings so that Windows does not update automatically... but then what? Perhaps rely on the Windows Firewall (an oxymoron) for a few days... hoping ZA will really get a handle on dealing with the latest Windows update. Any suggestions?
Last night I kept going back to earlier restore points and ultimately found one 3 weeks old that would install... nothing changed, my main admin account is thill totally thrashed. In the mean time, that same ZA update that trashed my PC worked OK on the laptop I'm using to write this - go figure.

Thanks rodrigit, I will give that a try.
Trouble is I already have two administrators on this computer; neither show up in user accounts but I will give your suggestion a go.
I have copied my file onto my desktop but it is all haywire. &quot;My Documents&quot; that I always used is just nowhere to be found. and all my emails have had the boot.
I attempted to do a restore with acronis only to find that none of the backup files would open.
I am seriously contemplating reloading Windows but what then, will I still get the horribly washed out desktop, with nothing going where I want it saved?
This whole episode is making me more than fed up. Is ZA to blame or is it the Windows patch?

My opinion is that ZA is responsible, since the update was created after the patch, the implication being that the update was a response by ZA to correct the problem created by the patch to the functionality of it's software. Microsoft doesn't necessarily go out of its way to create Windows patches that are compatible with all the thousands and thousands of software (and that is understandable). ZA knew what the patch did to its firewall software, and &quot;fixed&quot; the software. But the fix was faulty in that it changed or even destroyed the operating system on some, non-trivial number of computers. True...it only did so on some computers and not others, but I am guessing that the update was released without sufficient time to debug under a variety of configurations. I understand because the company's reputation and potential income would be impacted without a fix in relatively short order. ZA tried...and it has heretofore produced great products. I am hoping that, as we speak, the programmers at ZA are working on a completely new patch that, if one installs it, will not play havoc with anyone's computer system, i.e. it will do what is was designed to do...make our computers safer by allowing us to install the windows KB199548 security update and still access the internet with &quot;High&quot; settings in the Internet Security zone and Trusted Security zone.